Intruder Alert! What are these?

[LizzyP]

I saw someone else post te same thing yesterday and someone suggested fasting your betta or moving him to a different tank and eventually they will die off, or your fish will eat them.

[Shadyr]

Don't see how fasting will help with an external parasite. I have removed him from his tank so hopefully the creepies there will die off by the time I'm back from my trip. I'm just worried about my poor Chicory! Recommended treatment from what I'm reading is to remove the worm with tweezers and coppersafe to kill larva. I do not feel comfortable with fish and tweezers!

[LizzyP]

Fasting so they don't have bits of food to feed on, so they would starve.

[Aus]

Holy crap. Doesn't look like anchorworm to me.. does it have a forked tail?

If it's planaria, they can latch onto a fish now and then but usually don't stay there long..

From another website, on anchorworm:

Only the female copepod attaches to and burrows into a fish host. Mature females can be seen with the unaided eye, and are about one inch in length. Females have a slender, white, thread-like body, with paired egg sacs trailing from the posterior end. The bases of the fins are the preferred sites for attachment, which begin initially as a small hemorrhagic (bloody) spot. Over time, a raised nodule develops from which the body extends, usually lying against the fish's side. Less commonly, anchor worms will attach to the gills.

If it's a leech, a 2 teaspoon per gallon salt water bath for 15 mins will make it drop off your fish. Then I'd coppersafe the lot, fish included. End of problem.

If it's an anchorworm (they have forked tails.. leeches do not) that won't work, you'll need to pull it out - make sure to get all of the worm out, including the head. The sooner, the better. And then look up meds to rid the tank of them..

[Jessie1990]

Eeek! I have some little white guys on my tank wall in a tank I am fishless cycling (with Shrimp now). It hasn't had fish in it for 2 months and the only "organic" decor is a tiny piece of driftwood, which is what they may have come from. I'm sure they are loving the shrimp... now I am really nervous to put my betta in when the tank is done cycling ><

[Aus]

Planaria are pretty common and not a bother unless there's millions of them.. they can compete for oxygen with the fish if there' way too many. They will also latch onto a fish now and then, but don't stay on or harm the fish.. and they usually pop up when the water parameters are out of wack (like .. cycling.. or not doing enough water changes).

They are pretty gross.. I'd probably like having more mini-critters in my tank, though.

[Shadyr]

After another failed attempt to grab the damn thing (new tweezers with smaller point! Attempted to make him sleepy with clove oil!) ending in an epic failure and another bite out of his tail, I gave that up and nuked his QT tank with Coppersafe last night. Sounds like true anchor worms, if they get up to an inch long, are much bigger than this thing is/was.

I didn't have time to cup him and inspect closely this morning, but after a quick look, I *think* it might be gone. I'll check him more thoroughly tonight. If the stuff didn't say it was bad for plants, I'd do the same to his real tank. But having finally gotten it all set up with live plants, I'm not about to kill them!

I still see the little things in his tank, I'll hopefully have time to dump all the water, rinse the gravel, and put it back before the trip...anything still in there other than the plants would hopefully NOT be by the time I get back.

[Shadyr]

So...how long should the creepies in his tank take to croak? I've had him out of the tank since last Friday and did a "as much as I could get out without abusing the plants too much" change, replacing the water with un-treated tap water. How do you like that chlorine, ickies? .... I guess it doesn't phase them too much.

I don't see the whatever it was on Chicory anymore, but he does have a bunged/missing scale where it was attached. And an extra bite out of his tail from his gyrations while I tried to remove it. So it looks like the story will end more or less well.

If only the damned things in his tank would hurry with the dying bit.

[Catfish Billy]

I had possibly the same things but I don't think they were planaria. I ended up restarting my whole tank! If they make cocoons on your plants then I had the same things.

[kfish]

Ughhhh this is horrifying! At first as I started reading I was like "NBD, planaria" then ... one got stuck to Chicory. AHHHH I'd die. They should die eventually without a host/food... X_X